QOTD: "As debt gets passed up the system from the micro to the macro like a spark of electricity, the assumption of failure becomes institutionalized. Encouraging individuals, banks and governments to fail becomes a pathway for larger entities to capture smaller entities and for smaller entities to capture individuals. Irresponsible spending is promoted from the top down and captured from the bottom to the top so that larger entities promote irresponsible economic behavior and by accepting the consequences of that behavior take on the political and economic power of that assumption until the global economy is one great totalitarian welfare state built on subsidies and debt.

Financial institutions gain by encouraging consumer irresponsibility. Governments gain by encouraging irresponsible behavior by financial institutions. Global entities gain by encouraging irresponsible behavior by governments. Responsibility is traded for freedom, but individuals, institutions and governments, who give up freedom of action in exchange for being able to pass their responsibilities up the ladder, are participating in a shell game." --Daniel Greenfield